The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Although aircraft and other vehicles used to utilize wired connections for in-flight entertainment and other services, it is preferred that new installations utilize wireless connections that allow existing wires to be removed where applicable. This saves time during installation for new hardware, and reduces the weight of the aircraft thereby make the aircraft more fuel efficient. In addition, the lack of hard-wired connections enables the vehicle's seating arrangement to be modified more easily without requiring a rewire of the cabin or interior of the vehicle for example.
Although systems for pairing a single device are known, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 9,694,725 to Watson, et al., pairing of many devices currently requires manual pairing of the devices one at a time. The increased use of wireless interfaces increases the number of devices that must be paired in order for the system to work properly. Typically, maintenance or other crew members manually paired the various devices, requiring a substantial amount of time, especially as the number of devices increases.
All publications identified herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
Over time, physical wires for wired connections of in-flight entertainment (IFE) devices and services are being replaced with wireless connections (e.g., BLUETOOTH protocol, 802.11, 802.15.4, etc.). Unlike their wired counterparts, wireless devices can advantageously be added to the in-flight entertainment or other system with significantly less installation work required around each seat. It is contemplated that only power will be necessary for these devices. This will in turn make available additional locations around the seat as no wired connection would be required to provide a connection (other than power).
During installation or reconfiguration of the IFE devices, each device will need to be paired or associated with each display or a seat's IFE center. This could be seat-specific, seat row-specific, or region-specific within the vehicle. For example, peripherals such as audio jacks, PCUs, near-field communication units (NFCs), etc. will need to be paired with the embedded RDU/DDS so they will function for that seat/customer. With the larger number of wireless devices that will be installed in the vehicle, there exists a need for automatic set up/pairing of each seat's wireless devices to reduce installation and set up time.
Thus, there is still a need for systems and methods for automatic set up/pairing of the wireless devices/interfaces in the vehicle.